That sounds like an intriguing idea. Set an AI commander with a set number of troops to guard a region, or assault from a particular location, and have the computer do all the micro? That’s cool. Of course, you go from Commander in chief to delegater and chief, but I can get behind that.

Heck, like resources and troop count, Commanders could be a very interesting resource. You have 3 sub commanders, how do you use them?

Or be able to say a certain Commander is allowed to use 33% of the resource “flow” as it sees fit to achieve an objective. Or tell it to change the makeup of it’s forces. From a gameplay perspective, you could turn Commanders into interesting characters, as officers have been in history, with faults and strengths, instead of the current player as lonely god. In a game like Ashes of the Singularity, that already has AI allies, it could probably be achieved with mostly UI work.

Kohan, I wasn’t really aware of, having come out during a period where I wasn’t playing anything but ID’s oeuvre :D. But it sounds like the ancestor to a game I’d like to try. Scourge of War, I’ll need to look into.

Or they’re like me, and go the complete opposite direction. Preferring the stately pace, and unrushed action of RTS’s like Wargame or Scourge of War to the Starcrafts of the world.

Plus I need me some easy pause and stop options. Paradox games are my bread and butter for a reason.

Very much this. Way back in the day I played a fair amount of WC3, but even then I was far from great. I’d demolish the AI, but against real players as you approached “good” it became a pain. It was all about knowing the meta and how to cheese it and build orders. There was some micro in there as well, but really it was mostly build orders for a given map (and then countering the current cheese, if you even could).

I’m older now and there is no way I would even really think about dealing with all that anymore. Whereas a MOBA is about one unit and map awareness. Yeah, there is a lot of knowing the other heroes (units), but beyond that it comes down to positioning more than anything. I’m not fighting in a team fight and then suddenly I realize that I lost my harvesters because while I was doing that there was some transport at my 2nd expansion that killed everything and now I’ve lost the game.

I soon found in Total Annihilation I liked metal maps, and I don’t think I’ve changed since. I even remember building a bunch of TA metal maps using different tilesets, alas now lost in a cd box somewhere. In Spring (a 3D open source engine that emulates TA) I favour a large metal plate or metal islands. I play on these using unit packs or mods adding hundreds of (usually overpowered) units, including dozens of defence emplacements and buildings and play rock/paper/scissors with them. Other RTS I favour maps or mods that provide easy resources too.

Spring 10.0 was released on 28th Feb btw, writing about it inspired me to download it again. I don’t have it on my latest windows 10 rebuild, will have to find the mods and maps too…

Resource gathered pretty much died for me with CoH. I mean it was still technically there, but it just made more sense to have it be an Area Control type thing instead of literal units wandering out and gathering crap waiting to die.

So which RTS do you think is the “best”? And which one is your personal favorite?

I think [B]Rise of Nations[/B] is pretty much the pinnacle of RTS games. Every part of that game is so well-designed, plus it still holds up incredibly well. If it has one flaw, it’s that its depth can be overwhelming, especially for new players.

Aside from RoN, I think the RTS game I had the most fun with is the [B]Men of War[/B] series. These games have plenty of flaws (especially the interface!), but they generate such engrossing stories unlike any other game I’ve played. I think the best way to play these games is coop, which the designers embraced whole-heartedly in their MoW: Assault Squad games. Also, it should be mentioned that the second mission in the original Men of War (the train defense one) is still one of the best RTS campaign missions ever created.

Warlords Battlecry 3 is best. Resources are generated by mines you take over, so no worrying about harvesters and crap like that and heroes grow and change during the campaign. Also, 17 nations and dozens of classes. Just so much everything.

I have to say TA and Spring at the top of the list, but I’ve put some crazy hours into Dawn of War. I still play DoW:Soulstorm + Armageddon mod + my own (Istvaan-like) maps on a semi-regular basis.

I loved World In Conflict though, the airstrikes/arty were an absolute delight yet to be bested, and it captured the essence of my shelf of Cold War military tech thrillers perfectly. I think I had at least 4 replays over the years.

Kohan was awesome. I loved how you formed “battalions” out of multiple units, the way they implemented supply zones and ZOC, and the hero units (kohan) had a very cool flavor to them. Also, the capturing of neutral races cities to produce units you normally did not have, as well as finding Kohan amulets, it all added up to a game with massive replay-ability.

Back in the day me and a friend used to work a 12 hour graveyard shift, we both had powerful (for the time) laptops and for over a year this was the game we played the most.

Oh how I miss my undead hordes. Not sure what happened to Timegate Studios, but they fucked up by not continuing this franchise.

I honestly think it can be kind of silly (albeit something I and other nerds constantly do) to get obsessed with shit like this.

I see it with board games, too. 1,000 different available, in print, great games to play. But nerds have to obsess, complain about, and chase the $400 one that was printed 6 years ago that is now out of print, obsessing so much that they somehow get less joy out of playing what is right in front of them, because they don’t have something.

There are a ton of great games. Better than BfME2. Just play them.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be ignoring Race for the Galaxy, Through the Ages, Twilight Struggle, Mage Knight, and War of the Ring in order to check eBay prices once more on Glory for Rome: Black Box edition.

Warlords Battlecry 3 is best. Resources are generated by mines you take over, so no worrying about harvesters and crap like that and heroes grow and change during the campaign. Also, 17 nations and dozens of classes. Just so much everything.

I remember thinking Warlords Battlecry 2 was better, but I can’t quite remember why. Might have been something to do with the non-linear “conquer the world” mode. Anyway, WBC 2 is $2 on gog right now, and WBC 3 is $10, if anyone is interested.

Kohan was awesome. I loved how you formed “battalions” out of multiple units, the way they implemented supply zones and ZOC, and the hero units (kohan) had a very cool flavor to them. Also, the capturing of neutral races cities to produce units you normally did not have, as well as finding Kohan amulets, it all added up to a game with massive replay-ability.

Back in the day me and a friend used to work a 12 hour graveyard shift, we both had powerful (for the time) laptops and for over a year this was the game we played the most.

Oh how I miss my undead hordes. Not sure what happened to Timegate Studios, but they fucked up by not continuing this franchise.

That wasn’t their only big mistake- Kohan II was just the first of mostly bad decisions over a decade that led to the studio shutting down.